Condos in the Woods

Condos in the Woods
Author: Rebecca L. Schewe
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0299285332

Scenic rural communities across the nation and around the world have been transformed as they have shifted away from extractive industries such as agriculture, mining, and forestry and toward recreation-based development relying on tourism, vacation homes, and retirees. These communities have built new economies and identities based on local natural resources and are highly dependent on the natural environment. With these changes have come new questions: Do retirees and seasonal residents fit into their new surroundings? Do longtime and new residents share the same values and visions for the future? Do diverse community members disagree about how to manage their forest and water resources? Condos in the Woods explores how these issues are reshaping community structure, employment, and inhabitants' attitudes toward their environment in the Northwoods. Looking at trends from the 1970s to the present, this work moves from the national scale to the Pine Barrens region in northwestern Wisconsin and examines the approaches of residents to the management of their natural resources. At the heart of this story, the authors find that despite the diverse makeup of such communities, residents share many common goals and values and display more successful integration than previously expected. "Makes a major contribution linking and expanding beyond an array of research on the question: What does the growing dominance of seasonal home ownership and use mean for the communities of northern Wisconsin?"—Susan I. Stewart, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station

Sand and Fire

Sand and Fire
Author: Dave Peters
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2023-04-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1976600065

The human and natural history of a fragile Midwestern landscape While many people are familiar with the federally protected St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers of northwestern Wisconsin, few know about the Namekagon Barrens, a rare pine barrens landscape within a few miles of their confluence. A tiny remnant of the millions of barrens acres that once covered the region, the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area lies in the heart of the state’s Northwest Sands, a band of pine and oak stretching from Bayfield on Lake Superior to St. Croix Falls on the Wisconsin–Minnesota border. Unfathomable amounts of glacial sand and repeated fires over thousands of years shaped a land of scrub oak and jack pine, blueberries and sweet fern, creating an ideal habitat for wolves and sharp-tailed grouse. Just as compelling is the land’s rich human history, from Paleo-Indian hunters to Ojibwe berry pickers, loggers to early road builders, and immigrants whose farming efforts failed to the wildlife habitat specialists who manage it today. The book, told in memoir style and featuring color photographs by the author, sets the land’s unusual natural history as the backdrop for a multilayered story about the impact of people on this vulnerable landscape.